Commodity Online How can US citizens know whether US gold reserves of 8,133.5 tonnes really exist in their vaults? The last audit of the U.S. gold reserves was supposed to have taken place in 2005, but according to KPMG LLP, they only audited the mint's fiscal year 2005 financial statements and they never saw any physical gold or even went to Fort Knox. The last real audit of the U.S. gold reserves took place in 1954, according to National Inflation Association, (NIA).

NIA said there are reports that Lenny Organ, the son of Harvey Organ (who recently testified at the CFTC gold and silver position limit hearings), was able to enter the vault of ScotiaMocatta (Canada's only bullion bank vault) and see that shockingly, it contained roughly 60,000 ounces of silver and gold that he estimated as being worth approximately $100 million.

Considering that the Royal Mint of Canada sold over $1 billion worth of gold in 2008 alone and many purchasers choose the convenience of vault storage and a paper certificate over physical delivery, the amount of gold stored in the vault appeared by Lenny to be exceptionally low.

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In June of 2007, Morgan Stanley agreed to pay $4.4 million to settle a class-action lawsuit with brokerage clients who bought precious metals and paid storage fees, when in fact it was alleged that Morgan Stanley wasn't physically storing their gold and silver at all. NIA believes we may now have an epidemic of banks selling gold/silver they don't have. If this isn't exposed immediately, it could bring down the world's financial system

In 1971, the U.S. government defaulted on its gold obligations when it ended the gold standard. If the U.S. couldn't repay the gold it owed to foreigners and was forced to end the gold standard, it's hard for NIA to believe that our gold reserves actually exist. If a publicly traded company is forced to audit its balance sheet annually, it's absurd for the U.S. to have not conducted a true audit of its gold reserves in 56 years.

NIA believes that due to the Federal Reserve's monetary inflation of the past few years, the price of gold should already be well above $2,000 per ounce.

"We already know that the Federal Reserve's bailout of Bear Stearns was done in part to keep silver prices artificially suppressed. It's not out of the realm of possibility that our country's gold reserves are being secretly sold off in order to suppress gold prices and artificially prop up the U.S. dollar," NIA release said.

In September it was announced that Hong Kong is moving all of its gold reserves from depositories in London to a new facility built under the Hong Kong airport. This was a clear sign that Asian countries no longer trust the western world to manage their gold for them. "In our opinion, a COMEX and LBMA default on gold and silver is inevitable as investors around the world wake up and realize that we have a fractional reserve gold and silver system, and begin to demand physical delivery of their precious metals."